Destiny 2 drives WoW Token prices to record heights

WoW Tokens can be exchanged for 'Battle.net Balance,' which can be used to buy games on Blizzard's digital platform.

Activision announced yesterday, along with a whole bunch of other things, that Destiny 2 will be playable exclusively through the Blizzard Launcher—or the artist formerly known as Battle.net. Not everyone was happy about the exclusion of Steam, which was a predictable outcome. But the news also had an impact on the in-game gold price of WoW Tokens, which briefly spiked to an all-time high in both Europe and North America.

WoW Tokens are a World of Warcraft item that can be bought and sold for either real money or in-game gold. They were originally intended to be exchanged for WoW game time, but earlier this year Blizzard expanded the system to include "Battle.net Balance," which can be used to purchase other things in the Blizzard lineup—including new games. Because Tokens are traded on an open market, the price (in gold) fluctuates based on supply and demand. And because Destiny 2 will be purchasable with Battle.net Balance, the demand for Tokens went way up.

As you can see at wowtoken.info, Token prices hit a peak of 140,171 gold in North America at around 11 pm yesterday (May 18), while in Europe it hit 251,678 gold. Obviously nobody's getting rich in either real or in-game currency, but players with either good timing (or, more likely, good luck) may have pulled in a nice little premium in gold on their Token sales. The price settled back to a more normal range fairly quickly—111,000 gold by 8 am in North America, 198,000 in Europe—but it looks like it's starting to bounce again: At around 1 pm, the North American price had climbed back up to 125,000 gold.